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“The optics of this are really just awful,” said David A. Smilde, a sociology professor at Tulane University who lives part time in Venezuela. “It was a strategic mistake. I think the Maduro government is going to get a lot of play out of this.”

The declaration by Mr. Obama came in an executive order that he signed on Monday. It authorized the American government to freeze any assets in the United States held by seven Venezuelan law enforcement and military officials whom Washington identified as being responsible for human rights abuses or violations of democratic due process.
...
“Venezuela is not a threat to any country,” said the main opposition coalition, Democratic Unity, in a statement distancing itself from the American action and voicing disapproval of “unilateral sanctions.”

Venezuela's central bank is in talks with Wall Street banks to create a gold swap that would allow it to monetize some $1.5 billion of the metal held as international reserves, according to government sources familiar with the operation.
...
The ongoing talks involve at least two institutions, Bank of America and Credit Suisse, the source told Reuters.

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

Location: stranded at Buenos Aires, a city that, like NYC or Paris, has so little to offer...

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Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Nope, that's all been covered by US media.

Did I say it wasn't?

Because responding to "Reuters reported.. " with a link to Reuter's sounds pretty lame as, like the proverbial half-black Scotch sheep, it only proves that you have an Internet connexion and know how to use Google .

Anyway, good enough you are becoming more involved in the thread's subject. Keep the good work coming.

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

Still can't find a single thing from that article that wasn't reported in the US news media, can you? How... unsurprising.

The moment you report here one you can find, we'll continue our conversation.

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

Location: stranded at Buenos Aires, a city that, like NYC or Paris, has so little to offer...

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Originally Posted by Ziggurat

You certainly gave that impression in this exchange:

Don't try to BS me and the rest of the public. You clearly are able to understand that when I say "you" addressing WildCat, "you" is "WildCat". You might have thought it could be "WildCat and Ziggurat" or "Ziggurat and Snow White", but never that "you" was "aleCcowaN".

It was your "gotcha" fantasy what clouded your mind and now you're just making excuses for your sloppy mistakes (And "you" here means "Ziggurat")

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

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Originally Posted by WildCat

LOL, the source of your "story not available in the USA" is an international news agency whose stories appear extensively in every major US newspaper.

Comedy gold right there!

Again, where exactly did I say that wasn't available in USA?

You're flailing, old chummmmmp. Get back into your senses!

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

Don't try to BS me and the rest of the public. You clearly are able to understand that when I say "you" addressing WildCat, "you" is "WildCat". You might have thought it could be "WildCat and Ziggurat" or "Ziggurat and Snow White", but never that "you" was "aleCcowaN".

It was your "gotcha" fantasy what clouded your mind and now you're just making excuses for your sloppy mistakes (And "you" here means "Ziggurat")

You aren't making much sense. Are you trying to say that your challenge was only relevant to Wildcat? That would be pointless. If the point is the failure of US media to adequately cover events, then it doesn't matter who answers that challenge. The only reason to make it specific to Wildcat is if you want to demonstrate something about his individual knowledge (though why would that even matter?), but if so, that's a stupid test of it, since it can be trivially passed with a bit of Google.

Perhaps your English skills simply aren't up to the task of conveying whatever information it is you hope to convey, and if so, I can't really blame you, it's not like my Spanish is any good. But really, you haven't made yourself at all clear, and the fault for that is not mine.

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

Location: stranded at Buenos Aires, a city that, like NYC or Paris, has so little to offer...

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Originally Posted by WildCat

Why yes, yes you did!

No, that was clearly about his encompassing article in #336. You know, the one you didn't read it but offered to Google check and show that a bunch of journalistic pieces of similar quality and covering most of its points had been published by mainstream media in the USA, a tall order you have been changing, scaling down and finally dodging since then.

Let's remind the public other than you two (WildCat and Ziggurat)

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

Though the author, Daniel Lozano, has written for the Huffington Post, you would hardly get anything of that quality about Venezuela through media in English, unless they're specialty media.

Originally Posted by WildCat

I'm not seeing anything there that hasn't been discussed ad nauseam by US, English language mainstream media. Was there something I missed?

The problem WildCat is that you lied with your "I'm not seeing anything there" unless you were talking of the Latin alphabet, because there's evidence you didn't read it at all as you have systematically fail to provide a single information unit in it.

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

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Originally Posted by Ziggurat

You aren't making much sense. Are you trying to say that your challenge was only relevant to Wildcat?

Why don't you define using the quoting thingy where is the challenge you're talking about and how it relates to your post #361?

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

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Originally Posted by timhau

It's as if this thread was undergoing a Glorious Bolivarian Revolution of its own.

Certainly what this thread's undergoing will end up sooner and much better than that. But I agree both finally will sink in the past.

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

The problem WildCat is that you lied with your "I'm not seeing anything there" unless you were talking of the Latin alphabet, because there's evidence you didn't read it at all as you have systematically fail to provide a single information unit in it.

I can't read Spanish, and the Google translation leaves a lot to be desired and likely isn't very accurate. So why don't you do us all a favor and post some things from that article you think weren't reported in mainstream English language news sources?

Location: stranded at Buenos Aires, a city that, like NYC or Paris, has so little to offer...

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Originally Posted by WildCat

I can't read Spanish, and the Google translation leaves a lot to be desired and likely isn't very accurate. So why don't you do us all a favor and post some things from that article you think weren't reported in mainstream English language news sources?

Well, you should have refrain then from making unsupported assertions. The problem now is you want me to "admit" I said what I didn't. Again #336

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

Though the author, Daniel Lozano, has written for the Huffington Post, you would hardly get anything of that quality about Venezuela through media in English, unless they're specialty media.

"anything of that quality" = the article as a whole together with the ability of the journalist, who has direct access to politicians both in the opposition and in the government, and mainly the interpretation in what is an "opinion column".

"unless they're specialty media" = not mainstream

So, it never was a "fact checking" campaign. Either you got it as a whole and commented about that or you didn't and moved to the next point.

I took your #337 as "I didn't hear the song but I can tell you that any four notes in a row the song contains have been repeated ad nauseam in North American and British music. Tell what four notes you are sure they haven't and I'll use an huge search engine plenty of music sheets and scores to find one popular example"

Why don't you better link here what you consider to be a good current piece of political analysis from US mainstream media? Nobody tried to prevent that. In fact, I'd welcome it.

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

This is "mainstream media" over there and the typical piece you get (we get it here also but just to understand what are you thinking there).

It contains a logic of "US gov't did nothing wrong" -what is true- and "the regime will take advantage to further clamp down on basic freedoms" -what is also true-, and it forgets almost all in the middle:

-Obama's sanctions sealed the failure of UNASUR's mission (A mission set to fail in low motion and in the longest run, but Obama's sanctions sort of wipe it out of the board)
-The more plausible scenario (no elections), with polls giving during December a 48% of voters backing the opposition and growing, a 39% of voters backing Chavism and falling, what was to become even worse for the regime as the economical crisis erodes Venezuelan quality of life, is now more probable to become one with elections and a limited strategic electoral fraud that probably will shore up the regime.
- A lot of symbolic gestures that conform to US vision but do nothing for the Venezuelan people, like the conflict involving the Uruguayan vice-president (the son of the founder of a extreme-left terrorist organization like IRA) who was called "coward" by Maduro.

In one month we'll have new polls measuring these effects, but I'm afraid it will be 45/45 instead of 50/35.

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

My opinion: The Obama-Castro embrace will almost surely dominate the U.S. media’s attention at the summit, and we are likely to be swamped with stories about the “historic” U.S.-Cuba deal. Americans love nostalgia, and images of 1950s cars in Havana and Fidel Castro’s 1959 visit to New York get good ratings among farmers in Iowa.

But in Latin America, it’s going to play differently. Unless Obama disarms Maduro at the summit with hard figures of the hundreds of millions of dollars stashed in foreign banks by corrupt Venezuelan officials, Maduro may steal the show from Castro, and dampen U.S. hopes of a major improvement in U.S.-Latin American ties.

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

Why would the rest of Latin America choose to back the government of Venezuela on their assault on the rights of the people of Venezuela?

Perhaps aleCcowaN's position is that Latin Americans are stupid.

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

Location: stranded at Buenos Aires, a city that, like NYC or Paris, has so little to offer...

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Originally Posted by WildCat

What is this "March 9 Executive Order" the article refers to? Do you have a link to it?

Look it up in mainstream media .

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

And there are no "sanctions on Venezuela". All the US has done is bar Venezuelan officials involved in human rights abuses from traveling to the USA.

It does more than that, but still only to that select group of individual Venezuelan officials.

Quote:

Why would the rest of Latin America choose to back the government of Venezuela on their assault on the rights of the people of Venezuela?

aleCcowaN has no answer for you.

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

This post would also be appropriate for a higher education bubble thread.

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

The order is being used by Maduro as a pretext to seize extraordinary powers. He claims it is a prelude to a US war of aggression against Venezuela. And therefore he needs extra powers to counter that threat.

The order says:

Quote:

I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, find that the situation in Venezuela . . . constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat. I hereby order:

That's actually just a legal formality which is necessary to impose sanctions, but it can be made to sound sinister. The situation in Venezuela is concerning, but "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security" of the United States? Probably not. But a president cannot order sanctions without using those words or similar ones as I understand it.

__________________A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
William Shakespeare

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Originally Posted by Ziggurat

aleCcowaN has no answer for you.

You both need to pile up much more ignorance over your ignorance to make me engage in that cold war crap.

The answer to a well shaped honest question would be "Samper was a visionary" (last asked on March 10th) and its corollary "Obama screwed it". Of course you hadn't the least idea and wouldn't ask in a civilized manner.

Obama chose to please the mentality Ziggurat and WildCat illustrate so well, replacing Cuba by Venezuela, and by that they only achieve to strengthen Maduro's regime. Chavists are going up in polls so it's possible for this year's elections to be held and Chavism to keep a vast majority in congress, so they will be able to maintain power until 2019, at least. Your doing: millions and millions of Ziggurats and WildCats can!

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

You both need to pile up much more ignorance over your ignorance to make me engage in that cold war crap.

Indeed, you only want to engage in your own unique brand of crap.

Nevertheless, you have no answer to Wildcat's question.

Quote:

The answer to a well shaped honest question would be "Samper was a visionary" (last asked on March 10th) and its corollary "Obama screwed it".

Why are you providing an answer to a question nobody asked? I mean, hell, even from a rhetorical point of view, you're at least supposed to ask it yourself before you give the answer.

Quote:

Of course you hadn't the least idea and wouldn't ask in a civilized manner.

I haven't the least idea of what you're prattling on about. But you seem wrapped up in your own little world. As for civility, I'm not the one that started us down that path, aleCcowaN, you are.

Quote:

Obama chose to please the mentality Ziggurat and WildCat illustrate so well

You think Obama is pleasing me? You think Obama is even trying to please me? Yeah, you really don't have a clue about American politics.

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

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Originally Posted by trustbutverify

Too much work for you to provide a link (in English) to piece of legislation you brought up?

I suppose Obama's executive order is written in English, natively

Can't you find it? Try WhiteHouse.gov

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

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Originally Posted by Ziggurat

<all nagging snipped>

The fact is that you all can't speak about Venezuela because you don't know a darn thing about it -"the one that started us down that path", don't make me laugh, old man!-, so, how typical, you started a ping pong of local gossiping and trivia about an Usian character.

I am here to periodically remind that to anyone who is not you and the lot.

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

The fact is that you all can't speak about Venezuela because you don't know a darn thing about it

The only thing I've said about Venezuela that you ever objected to on the basis of "substance" was my calling Chavez (and Maduro) "leftists". Not that you had anything to back up this objection, but it's still the only objection you actually had.

Quote:

"the one that started us down that path", don't make me laugh, old man!-, so, how typical, you started a ping pong of local gossiping and trivia about an Usian character.

Yes, aleCcowaN, you're the one who made our interaction hostile, not me.

Quote:

I am here to periodically remind that to anyone who is not you and the lot.

This message board does not need reminding of how thin-skinned and irritable you are. We're all quite familiar with it by now.

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

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Originally Posted by Ziggurat

The only thing I've said about Venezuela that you ever objected to on the basis of "substance" was my calling Chavez (and Maduro) "leftists". Not that you had anything to back up this objection, but it's still the only objection you actually had.

Yes, aleCcowaN, you're the one who made our interaction hostile, not me.

This message board does not need reminding of how thin-skinned and irritable you are. We're all quite familiar with it by now.

My vitriolic opponent, how does it follow from something you claim the only thing *I objected* that you know about Venezuela? You said and will say almost nothing because you didn't and won't know about the subject. And you're not exception.

But you keep coming for the sake of hostility or mockery or whatever but to provide any information and analysis about Venezuela herself. It's evident in your last 20 posts more or less. Just low-energy nagging. At least stop being puerile in scholar disguise, do your job and nag like a forum sport by looking up some piece of news your way towards Venezuela, something that you didn't know before searching but something that you think it would irritate me.

__________________Horrible dipsomaniacs and other addicts, be gone and get treated, or covfefe your soul!These fora are full of scientists and specialists. Most of them turn back to pumpkins the second they log out.I got tired of the actual schizophrenics that are taking hold part of the forum and decided to do something about it.

You both need to pile up much more ignorance over your ignorance to make me engage in that cold war crap.

The answer to a well shaped honest question would be "Samper was a visionary" (last asked on March 10th) and its corollary "Obama screwed it". Of course you hadn't the least idea and wouldn't ask in a civilized manner.

Obama chose to please the mentality Ziggurat and WildCat illustrate so well, replacing Cuba by Venezuela, and by that they only achieve to strengthen Maduro's regime. Chavists are going up in polls so it's possible for this year's elections to be held and Chavism to keep a vast majority in congress, so they will be able to maintain power until 2019, at least. Your doing: millions and millions of Ziggurats and WildCats can!

Why would the rest of Latin America support Maduro's government in oppressing the people of Venezuela?

Then it should have been easy for you to provide a simple link to a document you referred to, instead of more obnoxious pomposity. I'm already familiar with the order, but there are others who would have found a link useful.

__________________"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." -- Mahatma Gandhi

Why would the rest of Latin America support Maduro's government in oppressing the people of Venezuela?

Perhaps he thinks they hate America as much as he does, and so are willing to sacrifice their own interests in order to oppose ours.

I'm just guessing here, of course, because he won't actually answer the question himself.

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

Then it should have been easy for you to provide a simple link to a document you referred to, instead of more obnoxious pomposity.

You can't take away the only thing a man has left!

__________________"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law

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